Test questions after negotiations

Each question in the list below is based on one or more true stories that happened to me.

What is the client's name and what position does he hold?

Negotiations often begin not with formalities, but with a discussion of tasks. At the same time, it happens that in the process of a heated discussion, people simply forget to ask each other’s name and position, and after negotiations they remain in a strange ignorance: “Who exactly did I just talk to?” I even had such crazy cases when a client with whom I was talking on Skype used someone else’s account with a different name, and I thought that his name was, say, Ivan. And later he turned out to be, say, Fedor.

After a couple of such incidents, I made it a rule to introduce myself at the very beginning, be interested in the name of the interlocutor and remember it for a long time. Now I do it automatically and without even thinking.

Am I confident that I spoke with the client and not with his representative, who will ultimately redirect me to the DPR (decision maker)?

Even if I recognize the position of the interlocutor and understand that he is a manager, sometimes it is useful to make sure that he does not have partners who will make the final decision. Or that he was not delegated the task of conducting reconnaissance and looking for a suitable contractor among several candidates, leaving the main negotiations for later. In this case, I would have to tell the same thing again to my immediate future client.

As a result, I came to the point that at the very beginning of the negotiations I began to wonder whether I was communicating with the decision maker. But there are also exceptions. Sometimes, immediately, without additional questions, it is clear that you are communicating with the right person.

Does the client know my name and what position I hold?

Here everything is exactly the opposite. At the very beginning of the conversation, I take the initiative into my own hands and make sure that the interlocutor understands with whom he is communicating.

There were a couple of clients who stated at the beginning of the conversation: “You were recommended to us by such and such a person.” And I communicated with them, being sure that the recommender had told everything necessary about me, but in the middle of the conversation on indirect issues I realized that this was not so. And there was even a case when I found out this after the conversation. The client complimented my design skills and asked if I was a planner rather than a designer. Anything can happen!

Do the client and I understand specific terms in the same way?

Technologies in the IT field are changing quickly, and terminology is adapted from English words. Many people interpret them differently. Few people understand how a prototype differs from a mockup, and UX from UI. And what is it anyway and what do you eat it with?

In any profession there are many specific terms familiar only to specialists. It is worth taking this into account when talking with the client and checking whether he understands the performer’s words correctly.

Am I sure that at this stage the client needs my services? Am I trying to offer him something that I am incompetent at or that he will need a little later or will not need at all?

Sometimes I realized that I could sell something even if the client did not need it. It wasn't very difficult, and I got my money's worth for such projects. But with this approach, I lost much more in the future when it turned out that the client paid for useless work and after that was not eager to contact me again. But this is not certain. I couldn’t actually conduct such an experiment with the same client and test my assumption. In any case, my conscience was much calmer when I was not trying to sell someone something useless.

If I feel that my service will not benefit the client, I tell him so directly. And then the decision is his. There are times when the client himself understands that the work ahead is most likely useless, but is ready to try for the sake of interest simply because he has extra resources for it.

If I think that I am incompetent in what I am selling, I also warn about this in advance. And I can even recommend someone I know who is better versed in this subject than I am. With this approach, I am calm about my reputation and periodically receive repeated requests from people with whom I was unable to work the first time.

Does the client know what stages the work will consist of?

Conditions for starting work, stages of its implementation, order of delivery. When my process of providing a service more or less settled down and was repeated from project to project, I sometimes began to forget that a potential client may not be familiar with this process. It’s good if he himself asks what stages of work await us ahead. And if not, then the customer may suddenly see points in the commercial proposal and contract that he did not even suspect.

This can either please the client (“Wow! It turns out that the contractor does much more than I expected!”) or upset (“Wow!.. There are so many things that the freelancer for some reason decided not to talk about earlier! You need to be careful with this!”). And in order not to risk and cause a negative reaction, I began to talk about all my stages and processes even at the first negotiations.

Do I know how the client feels about having their work published in my portfolio? If he doesn't mind, then when is it possible to do this?

At first I didn't think about it at all. Especially when I didn't have a public portfolio. But over the years, when I began to demonstrate the results of my work to a wide range of people, I realized that each such work increases the chance of new clients.

From that moment on, it became more profitable for me to work with those clients who were not immediately opposed to placing their projects in my portfolio. And for those who refused, I could reasonably raise the price. But for this it was necessary in advance, even at the first negotiations, to inquire about their attitude to this issue.

Sometimes clients agreed to publication only after time had passed and certain conditions had been met. For example, a year after the project is released.

Does the client know what will happen after our conversation and when?

If he doesn’t know, it means I left him in an unpleasant position. It seems like we talked and decided something, but at the same time it’s unclear what to do next and what to expect. Finding himself in such a situation, the client can wait a while and give up. And when he receives my commercial offer in a few days, he will already be working with another contractor. Or he himself will return with the question “What are our further actions?” In this case, at the very beginning of our cooperation, he takes on some managerial functions and is ready for the fact that he will continue to have to urge me on and ask how things are going.

To prevent this from happening, at the end of the negotiations I inform the client that within an hour I will check my calendar and announce the date for submitting a commercial proposal. I need this so as not to call any deadlines, even such insignificant ones, impromptu. During this hour, I coolly check my calendar and prepare an email for a client. It contains a brief summary of our conversation and the date of the next step (for example, the day I send the customer a quotation) accurate to the hour.

Do I know the client's email?

How can I send him an email with the results of the conversation if I forgot to find out his email address? But this has happened, more than once! You write a follow-up question: “What is your email?” But the client has already left the computer or has started other negotiations... This means that it is unknown when he will respond. And you will have to send him a summary of the negotiations and the date of submission of the commercial proposal via a message in the messenger. This is not scary, but in the messenger it is much more difficult to find this information in the future. Moreover, some instant messengers allow you to delete your correspondence history.

I find out the email at the very end of the negotiations, before saying goodbye.

Do I know how the client found out about me?

It is useful to have a general idea of ​​the sources of information from which a particular incoming client learned about me. This way I can pay more attention to those sources that bring the most interesting clients, and not waste resources on the rest.

If the client himself did not tell during the conversation how he knew about me, I will clarify this point at the very end, when everything has already been agreed upon.